Otis College of Art and Design is pleased to host the Los Angeles Portfolio Day on January 15, 2017 from 12-4pm!

Bring your portfolio for an informal review by representatives from art and design schools, and learn about their programs of study. Portfolio Day events are held across the country, high school students, parents, teachers, guidance counselors and college transfer students are encouraged to attend.

In acoustical engineering, “tuning the room” is a technique for measuring the specific sound properties of an enclosed space and then adapting the environment to improve its acoustic reflections. New York-based artist Anna Craycroft applies this technique both literally and metaphorically to the Ben Maltz Gallery for her exhibition Tuning the Room. Craycroft’s exhibition asks that we consider how the specific characteristics of an environment shape our experience within it, and how we become attuned in return.

Robin Coste Lewis won the National Book Award for Voyage of the Sable Venus. Her writing has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, Callaloo, The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, Transition: Women in Literary Arts, VIDA, Phantom Limb, and Lambda Literary Review. She has taught at Wheaton, Hunter, Hampshire, and the NYU Low-Residency MFA in Paris. Lewis is a fellow of Cave Canem and of the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities, as well as a Provost’s Fellow in Poetry and Visual Studies at USC.

Solmaz Sharif’s first collection, Look, was recently published by Graywolf Press and is a 2016 National Book Award finalist. Her poetry has appeared in the New Republic, Granta, Poetry, and other journals. Her first collection, Look, was recently published by Graywolf Press. A former Stegner Fellow, she is currently a lecturer at Stanford University and lives in the Bay Area.

Related Links

Although my sister and I hadn’t traveled together since 1996, when we trekked through Nepal and India, we had heard great things about Sri Lanka, and had always wanted to travel to this primarily Buddhist country. Ever since the 2004 tsunami devastated much of this country’s coastal region, we knew we wanted to help out through some kind of volunteer work. This led us to contact the long-standing organization Volunteers for Peace that helped organize and place us with a local school near the town of Hatton.

After soaking up the sun on the powdery beaches of Unawatuna, and leopard-spotting at Yala National Wildlife Reserve, we arrived in the heart of Sri Lanka’s hill country, known for its moun tainous terrain and manicured tea estates. Getting past several unanswered cell-phone calls and missed pick-up points, we arrived haphazardly at the town of Bogawantalawa. The K-12 government Tientsin Tamil School perches high above the tea plantations amidst low-flying clouds. My sister’s plan was to teach English, and I intended to teach drawing and painting.

The day we arrived, we met our team leader Victor, who enthusiastically greeted us with a warm embrace. He was originally from the region but had moved to India as a boy. A group of South Korean high school and college students had arrived a week earlier to do various volunteer projects around the school. We met them in the principal’s office as they painted it a paler shade of lavender. We exchanged many a vanucam, which means hello and/or welcome in the Tamil language.

Later that evening, we hiked down the hill and met the local family hosts: Kala, her husband, and their three beautiful daughters, along with grandma (whom I fell in love with) and the mischievous servant boy, Tambie. They were a gracious Tamil family who ran a local shop named ‘Sathiyas.’ Although the accommodations weren’t exactly five-star, the early morning cold- bucket showers were warmed by Kala’s sweet smile, milk tea and delicious curries.

My first day of teaching was a bit of a shocker. To my surprise, the students all stood when I entered the class and did not sit until I told them that they were allowed to do so. I’d like to try this on a particular group of Westside 9th-graders (ha!). At Crossroads School, where I teach in Santa Monica, I whine when I get 15 students in a class. Here, I faced 40 students, plus all the onlookers at the windows who wanted in on the class as soon as they saw me passing out watercolor sets. I began with my staple self-portrait lesson and had a sweet exchange with the students, translating facial parts and colors into the Tamil language. After the class was over, I was ushered to the science lab, past a group of Korean students who were doing a an outdoor mural featuring hand-holding students in front of a globe with a ‘We love Sri Lanka banner.’ “Poor kids,” I mused. “Murals are such a pain.”

I was introduced to the science teacher, a sweet lady in a bright yellow sari, and she asked me if I was a “professional artist.” I assured her that I was, and thought to say, “Lady, please.I went to Otis!” but I figured that wouldn’t get too far in these parts. She gestured toward the large wall at the back of the science lab, and said she needed a mural that the students could learn from. “How ‘bout a Tamil Tiger and a Sri Lankan soldier doing a Bollywood dance together?” I thought. Probably not, Sri Lanka doesn’t need another civil war. After looking at several science books, we agreed on the cycle of life of a tadpole turning into a frog, and the metamorphosis of a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.

Never having done a mural, I pulled up my knickers, tied a pencil to a long stick and thought to myself, “What would Gronkdo? Does Kent Twitchell ask for a contract? Would Judy Chicago hold out for a press release?” Time to leave my ego at the bottom of the hill and just do the work. Besides, there was a butterfly in the making and possibly a lotus. I’d try to make Roy (Dowell, Chair of Graduate Fine Arts) and Lari (Pittman, his partner) proud.

Since the Korean students had used almost all the supplies for their mural, there was very little paint left. Also, the lacquer paint and the thinner had been left out in the rain, so I had to find kerosene and diesel fuel in order to salvage the remaining supplies. They had forgotten to leave the brushes soaking overnight in paint thinner, so I had to use some of the preschool brushes that I had brought to donate.

I blocked in the mural using ground-up watercolor sets mixed with the white latex paint that was used to whitewash the classrooms. We soon got the supplies straightened out, and I was off and running, with many of the students poking their heads in through the windows, sharing smiles and helping out with a few brushstrokes. Later in the week, on their last day, the Korean students gave a performance, complete with music, dance and fashion show. The Tamil students also sang and performed traditional dances. My sister and I were honored with flowered wreathes and I was repeatedly called “the greatest artist ever.” Later that evening, we all gathered in the science lab, and the Korean students passed out many bottles of ginseng sake.

During our last few days, my sister helped me with the mural, and the school brought in in a local temple painter named Desh, who was very patient. On our last day, I completed the giant butterfly that loomed over the pond. We returned to the science lab to share our last goodbyes, hear my sister sing a few Spanish songs to the faculty, and watch “the greatest artist ever” dedicate his first mural “To the Children of Tientsen Tamil School.”